by Laura Landon
An explosion of light ignited somewhere inside her breast. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but it gave her a glimmer of hope. If she could discover the reason he thought he couldn’t marry her...
"Why did Gabriel refuse to marry me a year ago?"
Her question couldn’t have had a greater impact if she’d dropped a cannon ball in the middle of their sitting room. The glass in Harrison’s hand stopped mid-way to his mouth and Austin sputtered as he tried to swallow the sip of brandy that suddenly seemed to have difficulty going down.
"Would you like me to repeat my question?" she said, watching the color fade on both her brothers’ faces. "What was the real reason Gabriel—"
"We heard you," Harrison interrupted.
Of her two brothers, he seemed to recover first. Austin, however, kept his gaze focused on some insignificant spot on the other side of the room.
"You know what Gabriel told you," Harrison said.
"I know that what he told me was a lie. My dowry meant nothing to him."
"What would you have lived on?"
Lydia smiled. "I have Southerby Manor."
"Do you think that would have been enough?"
Lydia wanted to laugh. "Yes, it would have been enough. We loved each other," she said, rising from the sofa. "Love and Southerby Manor would have been more than enough."
She moved her gaze from one brother to the other. "What happened when Gabriel met with Father? You were there. What did Father say that forced Gabriel to tell me he didn’t love me?"
A soft knock on the door prevented her brothers from having to answer her question.
"The Duke of Chisolmwood is here," Ruskins announced. "I suggested that now was not a good time but he was quite insistent."
Harrison and Austin exchanged uncomfortable looks, then Harrison rose from his chair. "Show the duke in, Ruskins."
"Very well."
The Duke of Chisolmwood walked in without being announced.
"Your Grace," Harrison said stepping away from his chair.
"Etherington."
The greetings were stilted. When they’d finished with the required pleasantries, the duke turned his attention to Lydia. A chill ran down her spine.
"I’m glad to see you are no longer missing." He studied her with an assessing glint.
"I was hardly missing, Your Grace. I was visiting."
"Whom were you visiting?"
Lydia tried to make her lie convincing. "I spent last month in the country."
"How interesting, then, that you were seen disembarking from the Silver Star just a few hours ago along with your brother, Captain Landwell, and Major Talbot."
Lydia fought the warning that caused her blood to rush to her head. "Then you also know that your son, the Marquess of Culbertson, disembarked from that same ship."
"Yes. I just left my son and heard some fabrication that doesn’t bear repeating. I thought perhaps you might be able to enlighten me as to the real reason you went to France."
"I’m afraid I can’t. Where I’ve been isn’t open for discussion."
The Duke of Chisolmwood’s eyebrows narrowed. "Then perhaps we should move on to a topic that is open for discussion."
"And what might that be?"
"The announcement of your engagement to my son."
Lydia’s breath caught in her throat. "I—"
His Grace held up a hand to stop her from continuing. "I just informed my son that I will schedule a celebration to announce your engagement a week from today."
"Your son agreed?"
"Of course. He knows his duty. He’s known for more than a year that he’s required to marry you."
Lydia clasped her hands in front of her and faced their guest. "Because it’s his duty?"
"Liddy," Harrison said, his voice filled with warning.
She ignored him. She was tired and frustrated and her nerves were stretched to the limit. The man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with had just walked away from her for the second time. Now, the Duke of Chisolmwood was explaining that his son would marry her ‘because it was his duty’ and she would marry him for the same reason. Well, she didn’t care a fig about duty.
She glared at the duke. "Perhaps," she said louder than she intended, "I prefer to have a choice in selecting the man I’m to marry."
"You don’t have a choice. You never did. Your year of mourning allowed you a postponement, not a reprieve."
"Because my father signed some paper?"
"Yes. Because your father signed some paper. A legal agreement, signed by your father and witnessed by your brothers."
Lydia’s gaze darted to Harrison, then to Austin. She couldn’t believe they’d had a hand in her betrayal. They both knew how much she and Gabriel loved each other. "How could you?"
"Oh, don’t blame them," Chisolmwood said. "They had no more choice than your father."
Her blood ran cold and she took a step closer to the Duke of Chisolmwood. "What did you say that made my father sign your agreement?"
"Nothing, really. I simply gave him a choice he couldn’t refuse."
"What choice?"
Chisolmwood’s brows arched and he looked toward Harrison, then back to her. "Your father didn’t tell you?"
Lydia couldn’t hide her surprise. "Tell me what?"
Chisolmwood smiled, then gave a bitter laugh. "He took our secret to his grave. How like him."
"What secret was there between you and my father? And what choice did you give him?"
Chisolmwood hesitated, then answered her with a staggering degree of haughty confidence. "I gave him the choice of making you the Duchess of Chisolmwood, or, allowing you to marry a penniless major and bringing about the total ruination of himself and your brothers."
Lydia swayed and Harrison’s arm was there to support her. "You threatened to ruin Father?"
She looked up and saw a dark, angry stain in Harrison’s eyes. Austin hadn’t moved from the center of the room but the glare in his eyes was even blacker than Harrison’s.
"And Gabriel? Is that why he told me he didn’t want to marry me?"
The room filled with a deadly silence as she looked from one brother to the other, then finally focused all her bitterness on the Duke of Chisolmwood. "Why is it so important that I marry your son?"
Chisolmwood took a regal step forward and breathed in a breath so huge it lifted his shoulders. "Because you were born to be a duchess." He slashed his hand through the air. "Just as your mother was. Until he stole her from me."
The hostility in Chisolmwood’s voice shocked her. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.
"You were in love with our mother?" Austin said.
"And she was in love with me! Until your father forced her to marry him!"
Lydia looked first at Harrison, then Austin. The shocked expressions on their faces told her Chisolmwood’s revelation was as complete a surprise to them as it was to her.
Lydia shook her head. The duke was mistaken. Her mother and father had been more in love than any two people she’d ever known. Obviously, though, Chisolmwood had never gotten over loving a woman he couldn’t have. "So you decided if you couldn’t have my mother, your son would have me?"
Chisolmwood smiled. "You’re so much like her you could be my Genevieve in the flesh. If only I could have saved her from the life she had, married to him."
Lydia stepped out of the protective cocoon Austin and Harrison had formed around her and walked to the other side of the room.
She kept her back to the duke and for several long seconds stared at the lifeless logs in the grate. When she couldn’t stand the anger raging through her any longer, she slowly turned to face him.
"What did you use to blackmail my father?"
"His debts."
"How much?"
The corners of Chisolmwood’s mouth lifted. "More than your brothers and Major Talbot could begin to pay. Although they’ve made a valiant effort to do so."
She remembered Gabriel�
��s demand for the largest note in exchange for his presence at the ball Chisolmwood hosted.
Her world shifted around her. To keep her father and brothers from being ruined, Gabriel had told her he didn’t love her. Then he’d demanded the largest of her father’s notes. She focused her gaze on Harrison. "How much is left to pay?"
The expression on Harrison’s face turned hopeless. "More than we could pay if I sold everything we own."
Lydia’s heart plummeted to the pit of her stomach. "And if I refuse your son’s offer?" She faced Chisolmwood bravely even though a feeling of dread overwhelmed her.
"Everything that isn’t entailed will be mine, and everything that is entailed will fall to ruin in a matter of a few years."
Lydia fought the thundering of her heart. This was the same choice Gabriel had faced. "You’re that desperate for your son to marry me?"
"I’m that desperate to make your mother’s daughter a duchess. I’m that desperate to give you everything I wanted to give your mother but couldn’t."
"Even though you know I don’t love your son but love someone else? The same as my mother loved someone else and didn’t love you?"
"No! Your mother loved me. She always loved me. Always!"
Lydia suddenly realized that the Duke of Chisolmwood had lived with the delusion of her mother’s love for so long his fantasy had become a reality. Which meant there were no lengths to which he wouldn’t go to see her married to his son.
"My son will come to see you shortly."
Lydia tried to meet the duke’s threats with a courage she far from felt. As if he realized the threat she was about to make, he held up his hand to stop her words.
"You’ll accept his offer. You are too much like your mother to do anything different. You will make whatever sacrifice is necessary to save your brothers from ruin."
"Is that what you think my mother did?"
"Of course. With never a word of complaint."
Lydia stared at Chisolmwood and searched for the words that would make him believe her mother had been happy with her father. But she suspected anything she said would fall on deaf ears.
She let her gaze move to where her brothers stood together. The soldier in Austin faced her with his jaw clenched tight, his shoulders squared, with the forced bravado of a man facing a firing squad. In contrast, Harrison studied her with the quiet strength that had always been his forte. Oh, how she loved them.
She knew how much they hurt for her, knew how much they wanted things to be different, but nothing could change what she had to do.
"Liddy—" Harrison started to say but Lydia held up her hand.
"Don’t. You’ve known all along how this had to end."
Lydia faced the duke. "You may tell your son I’ll be expecting his visit."
She turned away from him before she had to see the superior gloat of victory on his face, and walked toward the door. She couldn’t stand to be in the room with the man who’d just destroyed her chance for happiness, and yet...
She stopped when she reached the door. She couldn’t leave without telling the Duke of Chisolmwood something she hadn’t told another living soul, something even her brothers didn’t know. She turned.
"I was with my mother when she died. She was very weak and in a great deal of pain. But at the end, she wouldn’t take any more laudanum because she said it muddled her mind. I sat beside her on the bed and she took my hand and pulled me close. She wanted to make sure I heard her last words."
"What did she say?" The look on Chisolmwood’s face filled with hopeful anticipation.
"She said, ‘Take care of your father. Leaving him behind is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.’"
Lydia didn’t wait to see Chisolmwood’s reaction but stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her.
She thought of her life without Gabriel and understood what her mother had meant.
CHAPTER 21
Lydia made her way through the crush in the Plunkett’s ballroom on her way to the terrace. The crowd was unbelievable tonight, with nearly all of Society back for the start of the Season.
It had been nearly a week since they’d returned from France, and each night she’d gone to either a ball, a musicale, or the opera.
As everyone in Society had noted, the Marquess of Culbertson had also been in attendance.
She glanced to an alcove at the back of the room near the door that led outside and studied him. He was deep in conversation with her friend Emmeline. The two seemed to get along very well so Lydia didn’t feel guilty about leaving him.
She left the ballroom and breathed in the cool night air. With a heavy sigh, she rubbed her fingers against her temples. She was as tired as she’d ever been. And as confused.
Culbertson had come to see her as his father said he would, and he’d asked her to marry him. She’d accepted because she had no choice. Not if she wanted to keep her brothers from losing everything. She didn’t doubt for a second that the Duke of Chisolmwood would follow through on his threat.
Lydia took in a huge gulp of air and hugged her middle. If only she’d never met Gabriel. If only she’d never fallen in love with him. If only they’d never made love. Then she wouldn’t know how wonderful love could be. Or how much she would always miss him.
She felt like a fragile string being pulled so tightly she was ready to snap. She’d never considered herself as having a delicate disposition. Never thought she might fall apart at the slightest provocation. But that’s how she felt now - as if the next step she took might not be on solid ground and she’d fall into a pit so deep she’d never be able to climb out.
And it was all his fault. Gabriel’s. Twice she’d thought she’d lost him in France, but even that hadn’t been as painful as when he’d walked out of her life the day they returned. She knew then that he’d never come back and she wasn’t sure she was brave enough to survive on her own.
She wanted to laugh. This was his fault, too. She desperately wanted to be alone with him, to sit with him someplace quiet and talk, to let him hold her and kiss her and make love to her.
She thought of the Marquess of Culbertson talking to Emmeline in the candlelit alcove and wondered how long she could be gone before they’d miss her. She knew not long, and took a step toward the doorway, then stopped when a voice whispered from behind her.
"Have you come out to enjoy the beautiful evening?"
The earth shifted beneath her. For just a second she was afraid to turn around in case the voice didn’t belong to Gabriel. In case there was someone else in the world whose nearness sent shivers down her spine. In case there was someone else with the ability to cause her heart to thunder in her breast.
But she knew there wasn’t.
She prepared to show him she hadn’t given him a thought since he’d left, and slowly turned around. It only took one look for her breath to catch in her throat and her heart to soar. She had to force herself to breathe.
"Gabriel."
"Lady Lydia." He bowed politely. "How are you?"
"Very well, thank you. And you?"
He smiled. "I’ve been well."
His gaze didn’t leave her face. It was as if he was memorizing every feature. She felt the same, as if he might have changed in the last week. She studied him to make sure he hadn’t.
"I’m rather surprised to see you here. I don’t remember that you were especially fond of crowds."
"I’m not."
An uncomfortable silence stretched between them and she filled the gap with the first words that came to mind. "I was just returning to Lord Culbertson. He’s waiting for me. Would you care to join us?"
Gabriel shook his head. "I came to talk to you."
She hesitated. "I don’t think—"
"It won’t take long."
When she hesitated longer he finished with, "It’s important, Liddy."
He stepped closer and leaned against the stone railing.
She knew from experience it was his habit to take
his weight off his injured leg when it ached. "How is your leg?"
He lifted his cane and smiled. "Getting stronger. I won’t be a threat on the dance floor any time soon, but now I can walk across a ballroom floor without making a spectacle of myself."
"At least you have an excuse. I danced with Lord Bingly earlier this evening. Looking at him, you’d think he had two perfectly good legs. My toes found out how deceiving appearances can be."
She was glad her comment elicited a small chuckle. She suddenly felt somewhat uncomfortable. "Harrison tells me the Queen has requested to see you. Have you been yet?"
"I have an audience with her tomorrow."
Lydia thought how exciting it was that the Queen had asked to see him and wished she could be there when he returned to hear every word Her Majesty said to him. She suddenly recalled how the two of them had shared every event with the other, every thought.
Her heart gave a sudden lurch, then settled into a soft ache because she knew that would never happen again.
She almost wished she’d never discovered why he’d lied to her when he’d said he wouldn’t marry her without her dowry. She wished she didn’t understand how difficult it had been for him to walk away from her that day.
"Has the Marquess of Culbertson asked for your hand yet?"
Lydia’s heart shifted painfully in her chest. She reached out to steady herself against the stone railing. After she composed herself, she took a deep breath and turned to face him with a broad smile on her face. "Yes, Geoffery asked me to marry him."
Gabriel paused, but in the dim moonlight she couldn’t tell if his expression changed.
"Did you give him an answer?"
"Of course. Haven’t you heard? The duke is hosting a gala affair tomorrow night to announce our engagement. All of London will be there. I’m surprised you weren’t invited. In a way, you are responsible for the two of us getting together."
"I am, aren’t I."
She dropped her hand from the railing and gave him her back. Before she had time to move she felt him step up behind her. His body towered over her, big and warm, all strength and power, and her breath caught in her throat. She waited for him to touch her, praying he would, fearing he wouldn’t.
